Archives - Consciousness: Page 18
Author: amparo enriquez (Sat Mar 04, 2006 1:09 pm)
Title: consciouness
C: designates any conscious process
C’: designates the underline neural activity of consciousness
Causal efficacy: the action in the physical world of forces or energies that lead to effects or physical outcomes.
Causality: according to the laws of physics, the causal order is closed-that is, it cannot be affected directly by mental properties such as qualia.
“We have pointed out that C is a process, not a thing, that it reflects higher-order discriminations, and that it does not occur in the absence of C’. but, given the laws of physics, C itself cannot be causal; it reflects a relationship and cannot exert a physical force either directly or through field properties. It is entailed by C’, however, and the detailed discriminator activity of C’ is causal.That is, although C accompanies C’, it is C’ that is causal of other neural events and certain bodily actions. The world is causally closed- no spooks or spirits are present-and occurrences in the world can only respond to the neural events constituting C’. (Edelman, 2004)”